EPA OKs plan to rid toxics from waste pits

Harvey damage expedites $115M cleanup of Superfund site on San Jacinto River

Hundreds of families in riverfront neighborhoods east of Houston fear that massive flooding has poisoned their land and fouled their wells with sewage, industrial pollution and toxic sediment from the region's most notorious Superfund site - the San Jacinto Waste pits. (Drone video taken by: Greg Moss)

Media: Houston Chronicle

The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday approved a plan to permanently remove tons of toxics from the San Jacinto Waste Pits - a Superfund site that was heavily flooded and began to leak cancer-causing dioxin into the river after Hurricane Harvey.

The plan, which comes after years of litigation and citizen activism that built public support for permanently removing the pits from the river's path, includes installing cofferdams to prevent release of the pollutants before excavating and removing an estimated 212,000 cubic yards of dioxin-contaminated waste.

The decision comes only two weeks after the EPA confirmed that a concrete cap used to cover the pits since 2011 had sprung a leak during Harvey's floods. An EPA dive team found dioxin in sediment in a concentration of more than 70,000 nanograms of dioxin per kilogram of soil - more than 2,300 times the EPA standard for cleanup.

The extent of damage caused by the latest dioxin release remains unknown. But flooding of the Superfund site prompted the EPA's Scott Pruitt to visit the river and move up a decision on the proposed cleanup plan that had been pending for about a year. The estimated cost is $115 million, the EPA announced.

Photo: Michael Ciaglo, Staff

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Contaminants from the flooded San Jacinto River Waste Pits Superfund Site site pose a potential health risk.

Contaminants from the flooded San Jacinto River Waste Pits Superfund Site site pose a potential health risk.

Photo: Michael Ciaglo, Staff

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View from I-10 westbound of the San Jacinto River waste pits area Sunday, Sept. 1, 2017 in Houston. There is concern over damage from Hurricane Harvey. ( Melissa Phillip / Houston Chronicle)

View from I-10 westbound of the San Jacinto River waste pits area Sunday, Sept. 1, 2017 in Houston. There is concern over damage from Hurricane Harvey. ( Melissa Phillip / Houston Chronicle)

Photo: Melissa Phillip

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View from I-10 westbound of the San Jacinto River waste pits area Sunday, Sept. 1, 2017 in Houston. There is concern over damage from Hurricane Harvey. ( Melissa Phillip / Houston Chronicle)

View from I-10 westbound of the San Jacinto River waste pits area Sunday, Sept. 1, 2017 in Houston. There is concern over damage from Hurricane Harvey. ( Melissa Phillip / Houston Chronicle)

Photo: Melissa Phillip

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View from I-10 westbound of the San Jacinto River waste pits area Sunday, Sept. 1, 2017 in Houston. There is concern over damage from Hurricane Harvey. ( Melissa Phillip / Houston Chronicle)

View from I-10 westbound of the San Jacinto River waste pits area Sunday, Sept. 1, 2017 in Houston. There is concern over damage from Hurricane Harvey. ( Melissa Phillip / Houston Chronicle)

Photo: Melissa Phillip

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Divers at the San Jacinto River Waste Pits ﻿found sediment with high levels dioxin, a cancer-causing chemical stored at the site.

Divers at the San Jacinto River Waste Pits ﻿found sediment with high levels dioxin, a cancer-causing chemical stored at the site.

Photo: Michael Ciaglo, Staff

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﻿Linda Bonner ﻿hugs her granddaughter Gaige-Lyn Gray ﻿on Sept. 6﻿ in Channelview. ﻿She fears time spent at her ruined home could have exposed her to dangerous contamination from the San Jacinto Waste Pits. less

﻿Linda Bonner ﻿hugs her granddaughter Gaige-Lyn Gray ﻿on Sept. 6﻿ in Channelview. ﻿She fears time spent at her ruined home could have exposed her to dangerous contamination from the San Jacinto Waste ... more

Photo: Steve Gonzales, Staff

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A sign warns the public about the EPA Superfund Site not to eat contaminated seafood caught from the water along Interstate 10 near the San Jacinto River east of Houston. ( Michael Paulsen / Houston Chronicle )

A sign warns the public about the EPA Superfund Site not to eat contaminated seafood caught from the water along Interstate 10 near the San Jacinto River east of Houston. ( Michael Paulsen / Houston Chronicle )

Photo: Michael Paulsen, Staff

EPA OKs plan to rid toxics from waste pits

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Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan said the finding that dioxin was exposed at the waste pits during the flooding was "frightening proof" that the EPA needed to act soon before another storm causes even more damage.

"What we had from Hurricane Harvey was a rain event. Had the storm hit closer to Harris County, we would have experienced high winds and storm surge," Ryan said.

Jackie Young, a Houston-based organizer and grass-roots activist who grew up near the pits and has spent six years fighting for cleanup, described the decision as an "enormous victory."

"We are sincerely appreciative that the EPA has chosen the only option that is protective of public health and the environment," said Young. She noted that 50,000 people commented on the EPA plan - and 94 percent supported cleanup.

It appears though that rather than a final solution, the plan will only unleash additional litigation from at least one of three companies involved in the cleanup. A spokesman for McGinnes Industrial Maintenance Corp. announced Wednesday that company will oppose removal.

"We cannot support a plan for the site that provides less protection to all affected communities than the existing cap already has provided," the company said. "We are deeply concerned that the decision announced today could" harm the San Jacinto River and downstream areas.

"We disagree with EPA's claim that the local or downstream areas can be protected during removal," the company spokesman said.

Tasked with cleanup

The San Jacinto River, one of Houston's largest rivers, becomes the Houston Ship Channel and flows into Galveston Bay - a major center for recreational and commercial fishing. It was in the bay in the 1990s that state park employees began to find extremely high levels of dioxin in fish they tested. The Channelview site of the waste pits, which had been used to store paper mill waste until the 1960s, was then rediscovered in 2005. Over the years the pits had become partially submerged by the river.

In 2008, the pits were added to the EPA's National Priority List as a Superfund site. Three companies were tasked with cleanup - McGinnes Industrial Maintenance, which once operated the pits, its parent company Waste Management of Texas, and International Paper Inc., the current owners of Champion Paper mill, which contracted to send its waste to the pits in 1960s.

In 2011, part of the approximately 14-acre site was capped with a concrete barrier. Over time, companies overseeing cleanup added other coverings and some 59,000 tons of stone that they claimed would secure the site.

But that same year, the Harris County Attorney's Office sued the companies involved in the cleanup, seeking compensation for damages to the environment from dioxin releases. In 2014, the county won a $29.2 million settlement from Waste Management Inc. and McGinnes Industrial Maintenance Corp. Champion was found not responsible for releases by a jury.

Yet over the years, dioxin has continued to leak from the pits, county officials and researchers say. Research by the University of Houston's Hanadi Rifai in 2011 and 2012 found hotspots of dioxin in sediments in the river and further downstream that she linked to paper mill waste.

A 'loaded gun'

The pits already have provoked other civil lawsuits from area residents and fishermen who fear that both the environment and area neighborhoods already have been poisoned. One pending case involves 600 area residents who have lived or owned property along the river in neighborhoods near the pits in Baytown, Channelview and Highlands.

Though the pits were originally on the riverbanks, over time the river has flooded the site numerous times. In a 2014 report, Samuel Brody of Texas A&M University concluded that the pits remained vulnerable to a hurricane, storm surge and heavy rainfall. Brody called the site a "loaded gun."

After Hurricane Harvey, the pits were entirely submerged by a fast-moving wall of floodwater that carried away cover material and rocks and the orange buoys that mark the site. EPA ultimately confirmed that dioxin had escaped again - and have promised further tests to gauge the extent of the damage this time.

According to a joint release by Ryan and County Commissioner Jack Morman, who represents the area, the EPA's decision will require the companies to pay for removal of the pits. Under the plan, an estimated 152,000 cubic yards of material contaminated with dioxin will be removed from the pits at the Interstate 10 bridge. The rest will be removed south of the bridge and all those materials will be deposited "into a secure, stable, inland permitted facility." It's unclear how long that process will take.